The Buildings of Central Michigan University
Daniel P. Rose/Grace L. Ryan Athletic Complex
Opened Fall 1973
Cost: $6 million
Central Michigan plays all of its home basketball games and volleyball matches
in the Daniel P. Rose Center's 5,200-seat arena. The Chippewas play on a wooden
court, purchased in the summer of 1986. The court was used only once prior to
CMU's purchase -- for the 1986 NBA All-Star Game. In 1987, the arena was enhanced
by the addition of two full-color message boards, one at each end of the court.
Permanent theater seating was installed in the lower bowl for the 1991-92 season.
A state-of-the art sound system was added in January of 1995. Since its opening
in 1973, Rose Arena has been the site of two women's championships and four
men's championships. In 1980, Rose was the site of the national AIAW Division
I National Championships (at the time, the equivalent of the men's NCAA Tournament).
And, in 1984, Rose hosted the first round of the women's NCAA Tournament. Rose
has also been the site of the Michigan High School Athletic Association'
s girls
basketball finals since 1997. Commencement ceremonies are held in the arena
three times per year.
Ryan
Hall was named for a teacher and authority in health and physic
al education
who was at Central from 1923 to 1958. Grace Ryan was born in 1894 in Portland,
Michigan. She graduated from high school in 1913, attended the Michigan State
Normal School in Ypsilanti, and joined Central's faculty in 1923. She was an
expert on American folk dances, having published a book on the subject. In 1931
she received her Master of Arts from Columbia University's Teacher's College.
In 1937 she added a recreation minor to the Physical Education curriculum, one
of only four in the United States at the time. In 1942 she started a folk school
modeled after a program at Berea College in Kentucky. She was a nationally known
consultant for college programs in Phyiscal Education.
Dan Rose was a graduate of the University of Michigan, where he had been a basketball star. He joined the Central faculty in the mid-thirties and went on to enjoy a long and successful career as a coach. In this photo, Rose is being carried off the floor by his players after the 1954 Eastern Illinois game, his last game as basketball coach. Central had won the game, 72-69.